A Cross Sectional Descriptive Study of Etiology and Clinical Pattern of Liver Abscess : 50 Cases

Abstract

Background: The liver is the organ most subjected to the development of abscesses and made up 48 % of all visceral abscesses' and 7% of all intra abdominal abscesses. Liver abscess should be suspected when there is a combination of fever, leucocytosis, constitutional symptoms, and pain in the right upper quadrant, and tenderness over the liver or right lower rib cage. The liver is affected by a number of local and disseminated infections; their frequency and types vary considerably around the world. Parasitic disorders are more prevalent in developing countries. Methods: It was a cross-sectional descriptive study. The cases were taken from the admitted patients of Medicine unit of SMCH, Chittagong. The study was conducted over a period of one year with a sample size of 50 patients and sample was taken by purposive sampling. Results: Among 50 patients 40 (80%) were diagnosed as ALA and 10 (20%) were diagnosed as PLA. ALA cases are common in 21-30 years age group & PLA cases are more common in >50 years of age group. Majority of the cases were from rural area. Common clinical features were fever, abdominal pain, nausea and tender hepatomegaly. Diarrhea was present on admission in 7 (15.9%) patients of ALA. Anaemia was common in both but polymorphonuclear leucocytosis was moderate to severe in PLA. Microscopic examination of stool samples for E. Histolytica trophozoites was positive in 3 (7.5%) cases and cysts in 4(10%) cases. Nine patients had right sided pleural effusion. Conclusions: Clinical features are common in both ALA and PLA. Liver abscesses are more common in men and more prevalent in rural areas. ALA more commonly occurs in 21-30 years age group but can occur at any age. Pyogenic abscess is more common in older age group (>50 years) and E. Coli is the commonest organism.

Detection of Malignant Cases From Focal Liver Masses by Fine Needle Aspiration Cytology and Cell Block

“…Pus culture was negative in all their cases, thus supporting our findings. 7 The second most common benign liver lesion on FNA and Cellblock in the present study was a pyogenic abscess. Similar studies conducted by Lodhi et al and Abbasi et al showed 18% and 24.8% cases of pyogenic abscess respectively.…”